What makes a show a shojo anime? What makes a show a shonen anime? Various things. Sometimes, however, a show can combine elements of both into show enjoyable for everyone. Escaflowne is such a series. On one hand itís a romantic series and on the other itís a mecha show. In other words a perfect balance.

The story starts out with Hitomi Kanzaki, a relatively normal high school girl who is on the track team and has a hobby in fortune telling. Things are going fairly normally for her but just as she is confessing her feelings for a boy she likes a dimensional hole pops open and a young man pops out followed by a dragon. After a fierce fight with the dragon the young man and Hitomi are taken back to his world. It turns out that the man is Van Fanel, the soon to be king of Fanelia. All is not well in fanelia, at least once the the Zaibach empire attacks in their invisible Guymelefs (what they call mecha in this show). Hitomi and Van escape with the help of the Fanelian royal Guymelef, Escaflowne, to the neighboring country of Asturia where they meet Allen Sheazar, the third side of the main love triangle in the show. The zaibach empire is hot their heels however.

The vison of escaflowne is an excellent show, one of the best in anime. Almost every element of the show is something that stands out if you pay enough attention. For me the thing that truly strikes me about escaflowne is the world of Gaea. It is a fantasy world but never overdoes it when it comes to the supernatural to the point where it feels like a video game rpg animated. Most people will probably be more enthralled with some other aspect of the show though.

The animation for Vision of Escaflowne is spectacular. It is top of the line, especially for a tv series. Even though it was created at the dawn of computer animation, the cg is very good. I especially enjoyed the dragon in episode 1.

Sometimes in reviews I praise the soundtrack. Escaflowne has a much better soundtrack than most shows I have done that to. Not only does it have a good opening and ending song the whole soundtrack is very solid. In fact I once watched an episode to listen to the fight song at the end.

The Vision of Escaflowne is one of the best anime shows ever. I recommend it whole heartily to anybody. I give it a rating of Fantastic.
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